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Cije Consolation of #isitorp 

ifrebericfe Cupper 



The Consolation of History 

AN AFTER DINNER SPEECH AT THE 
ANNUAL BANQUET OF THE VER- 
MONT COMMANDERY OF THE 
LOYAL LEGION OF THE 
UNITED STATES 
MAY 11, 1920 

BY 

FREDERICK TUPPER 






Frederick Tupper, Ph. D., L. H. D., guest 
of honor and principal speaker at the Annual 
Banquet of the Vermont Commandery, Mili- 
tary Order of the Loyal Legion of the United 
States, May 11, 1920, is a native of South 
Carolina and the son of a Confederate soldier. 
He is Professor of English Language and Lit- 
erature at the University of Vermont. 

— The Recorder. 



SEP 20 1920 



Commander and Members of the Vermont Commanderij of the 
Loyal Legion: — 

To the many memories evoked at such a meeting as 
this will you allow a stranger guest, deeply honored by the 
bidding to your feast, to add a reminiscence very trivial in 
its seeming? Twenty-five years ago a young South Caroli- 
nian, wishing to cast his first ballot, presented himself be- 
fore the Burlington Town Clerk, Mr. Charles Allen, a merry 
man within the limits of becoming mirth. The following 
dialogue ensued: — 

"Have you ever voted in Vermont?" 

"No." 

"Were you born in Vermont?" 

"No." 

"Have you ever voted in the United States?" 

"No." 

"Were you born in the United States?" 

"Well, I was born in South Carolina." 

"We decided that South Carolina is in the United 
States. You may vote." 

From that decision the Southerner has never desired 
to make an appeal. And though, in the quarter of a century 
that has passed since then, he may not have felt that he 
has parted, Esau-like, with his birthright for a mess of 
baked beans and a pint of maple syrup, yet he has often 
compared himself with an old Negro acquaintance of his 
who once said, "I'se libbed so long in dishyere Norf, dat 
I'se become a galvanized Yankee." 

In this late day and hour, the son of a Confederate 
soldier, rocked in his babyhood in the erstwhile cradle of 
secession, and reared to manhood amid the memories of a 
war in which all the men of his blood had fought and some 
five of them had died, rejoices, as do you all, in our joint 
heritage of the bravery and self-sacrifice of sixty years ago — 



the charge of Pickett and his Virginians, the defense of 
Stannard and his Vermonters. Some of you may have 
heard the story — well-found if not well-founded — of the 
unreconstructed "rebel" who was captured after a sterji 
chase and marched by a squad of soldiers to the Provost's 
office, to take the oath of allegiance to the Union. After 
the ceremony, he asked with a slow drawl: "I understand, 
then, that we are, so to speak, one now?" "Ah, yes," an- 
swered the Provost, "you are now one of us." "Well then, 
didn't Stonewall Jackson give us Hades in the Valley of 
Virginia?" If I may use "we" and "us" less insidiously 
than this, we all seem cast so unmistakably in a common 
mould of Americanism that the conventional distinctions 
between Northerner and Southerner, the supposed Puritan 
with his conscience and supposed Cavalier with his code, 
always abuse my patience. Indeed these well-worn stock 
types have little foundation in fact. The typical Puritan 
soldier of the Civil War, who prayed before every battle, 
is not only our Northern Howard, but our Southern Jack- 
son; the typical Cavalier is not only the gray-coated Stuart, 
fighting all day and dancing all night, but the blue-clad 
Sheridan riding to Winchester; and the sovereign act of 
chivalry — which even now stirs the finer fibres of men — 
was wrought by no dashing Virginian, but by General Grant 
himself when his supreme tact spared Lee the surrender of 
his sword. For my part, I have met in all my life but one 
young man who resembled point for point the traditional 
Southerner of fiction, and he came from Massachusetts, 
the son of a father who had fought in the Union army. 

If the stock conception of sectional types often blurs 
and blears our vision, there is yet another mythical figure, 
against which the speaker wishes to take up the cudgels in 
self-defense. In thirty years and more of college life, I 
have never met in the flesh that hackneyed creation of the 
stage and the story and funny columns, the "typical" pro- 



fessor, so absent-minded that he stammers over his name 
at a post-office window, stumbles into his residence of last 
year and chalks his diagrams on a passing street-car; so 
childishly helpless in money matters that he easily falls 
prey to the allurements of the Wild Cat Copper Mine or of 
the Oceanic Syndicate for the Conversion of Salt Water 
into Gold despite his supposed expertness in mineralogy or 
chemistry, and so hopelessly remote from ordinary folk 
that his bookish jargon, a weird composite of the Greek 
lexicon, the psychology text-book and the differential cal- 
culus, empties speedily all the parlors of his native town. 
The pedagogue is often deemed a sort of third sex. 

One of the most prominent citizens of the country, 
speaking to President Meiklejohn of Amherst of his college 
days, said: "I remember so vividly those few occasions on 
which the professor would put aside the books and talk 
like a real man about real things." The teacher's great- 
est gain of late has been through his closeness of touch with 
realities. As everybody knows, or should know, Academi- 
cus, in the service of his government, has recently been 
doing a hundred needful things — administering, inventing, 
composing, testing, ciphering, classifying, charting in of- 
fice, laboratory or shop. He has not failed where clear head, 
keen eye, firm hand and human fibre are indispensable. 
The scholar's champions claim that his faith, his readiness, 
his capacity for work early and late — the sovereign traits of 
library alcove and reading desk — have been his inspiring 
contributions to a world in its hour of crisis. 

In a notable passage of one of Kipling's short stories, 
a middle-aged man of letters who has known only the snug 
life of England unexpectedly meets some young lieutenants 
fresh from the front and listens eagerly to their reminis- 
cences. Presently he interrupts one of them with the 
startled question, "You! Have you shot a man?" "There 
was a subdued chuckle from all three boys, and it dawned 



on the questioner that one experience in Hfe which was 
denied to himself had been shared by three very young 
gentlemen of engaging appearance. He could not alto- 
gether understand the boys. The steadfast young eyes 
puckered at the corners of the lids with much staring 
through red-hot sunshine, the slow untroubled breathing 
and the curious, crisp, curt speech seemed to puzzle him 
equally." It would be sheer presumption for an older man 
without the necessary understanding to attempt even the 
briefest summary of the war-service of our youth. Such a 
one must humbly gather his knowledge of that very vivid 
reality by reverent attention to the recitals of youngsters 
back from the great adventure; and he will gather it with 
difficulty for never, I am sure, was there a war in which so 
much heroism was coupled with so few heroics, so many 
marvels of daring and fortitude achieved with such modest 
matter of factness. "Do you really think, sir, that my ex- 
perience could possibly furnish any matter for a class essay ?" 
asked a student who had packed into the crowded 
hours of a year of naval aviation the sensations of a century. 
Sooner or later, however, he will tell his story, and other 
men will more or less reluctantly tell theirs; and the future 
historian of Vermont will piece together a narrative which 
all of us will be very proud to read. 

As in 1861 war sounded to the youth of our country a 
clear trumpet-call which brooked no denial and blazed for 
them a straight way which permitted no hesitation. A de- 
finite job of tremendous magnitude was accomplished speed- 
ily and triumphantly without the least uncertainty of head 
or heart. But now comes to us all, both old and young, a 
call not less insistent but far less intelligible — the summons 
of present conditions whose way is by no means clear and 
straight. A restive earth is confronting a new era in which 
all that has been is no longer, all that will be is not yet. In 
the ceaseless flux of things, amid the engulfing tides of radi- 

6 



cal sentiment and riotous opinion, old landmarks have been 
swept away, old bearings lost completely, and for the mo- 
ment our feet fmd no bottom. Where is firm ground, to 
what shore shall we turn, whither are we drifting? The 
teacher of that far-off world, through which we moved with 
easy assurance only two or three years ago, was wont to 
tell his pupils that openness of mind was the richest product 
of college training. "Prove all things," he used to say, "and 
hold fast to that which is good." But in these restless days 
of shift and change, when there is often so little time for 
testing and proving, the advisor is inclined to think that 
presence of mind, in its literal meaning of mental readiness 
and alertness, is of even greater worth. Physical drill has 
counted for little unless the soldier's body instinctively 
responds to the command of the moment. Mental train- 
ing counts for even less, if the student's mind does not cope 
intuitively with the sudden demand upon its energy. Pre- 
paredness is our plea — such mobilization of the powers of 
thought as will enable the citizen to grasp the moment, 
to meet the emergency. 

Hence the hopes that were based upon the short-lived 
S. A. T. C. There were many who believed that the sub- 
ordination of the academic to the military would result to 
the great good of both. It was fancied that sluggishness, 
slovenliness of mind, the inertia of the intelligence which is 
entirely content with "doing things rather more or less," 
the irresponsibility which evades the burden of the immed- 
iate obligation, would vanish at the word of high command, 
and that every class-room and every task would be pervaded 
by that spirit of thoroughness and uniformity which, in the 
phrase of the Manual, is "indispensable to efficiency." 
The experiment laden with such promise was denied a fair 
trial by armistice and epidemic and the golden dreams of a 
wonder-working education were never realized. 

Nor do I think that any new and broad road — any 



Lincoln or Roosevelt highway — to the shining goal of a 
thorough-going mental mobilization will soon lie clear be- 
fore us. Rather through the reconstruction of old but 
sadly neglected thoroughfares shall we arrive. The citizen, 
no less than the soldier, becomes aware that the seemingly 
sudden demand upon all his disciplined energies can be tri- 
umphantly met only through an adequate knowledge of 
the forces which oppose him. The best guide to such know- 
ledge is a tradition at once strong and sound. Much of the 
mischief and confusion of the presence arises from an ig- 
norant disregard by untrained men of every lesson that his- 
tory has taught. The educated man, in his inheritance 
from the past, holds the precious material without which 
no worthy future can be moulded. The age that is most 
disposed to reject the teachings of the past, — cocksurely 
confident of the value of its own undirected outlook — is 
always the age that needs these teachings most, for an un- 
teachable spirit is surely the most tragic thing in life. The 
fruitful epoch brings the learning of an earlier day to bear 
upon its own vital problems and thus shapes a new world 
with the mental and moral sinews of the old. Thus only 
can we justify Emerson's epigram that we must have eyes 
in our hindhead as well as in our forehead. The unschooled 
man, taking another's orders, looks only to the front; the 
over-schooled man, your bookish pedant, looks only to the 
rear. He who has profited most by his training has both 
the backward and the forward looking glance. 

A few days ago, I chanced upon an English book, "The 
Island of Sheep," which presents in the form of a friendly 
dialogue at a British country house a disturbed state of mind 
that many of us share. "It seems," says an ex-officer dole- 
fully, "that we have won the war and are doing our best to 
lose the fruits of it. Nothing has gone right since that in- 
fernal armistice." 

"Cheer up, old man," says a friend, "in time we'll get 

8 



used to the horrors of this peace to end peace We're 

all getting too pessimistic. After all none of our troubles 
are new. Read the memoirs of a hundred years ago and 
see the fools our people made of themselves at European 
congresses. Even our labor troubles — every one of them — 
have a long history. I am prone to the dumps myself, and 
the best cure is to read a little history." 

'"Ear! 'Ear!" chimes in a little Cockney labor leader, 
with a thin face, fiery red hair and restless brown eyes, 
"That's well-spoken. What we all want is to learn a bit of 
'ist'ry." 

It is true that history never repeats itself absolutely — 
that the points of difference are always as marked as the 
points of likeness. And yet the present often seems a mere 
reflection of fiery facts and forces which have set the world 
aflame during the centuries. None of our own war-poets 
but Tennyson sixty years ago best describes America in 
her recent heroic mood when he extols a land that loses 
for a little its lust of gold and love of a peace that was full 
of wrongs and shames, after a war has arisen in defence of 
the right, and when he chants the glory of the manhood of 
those who can say in that great hour: "We have proved 
we have hearts in a cause, we are w^orthy still." No voice 
of to-day, but one that has been silent for a century pictures 
the wretch on yonder throne (backed by the bravos that 
support his rule) commanding the bloody fray to begin and 
humanity rising in Promethean might and driving the royal 
murderer from his seat amid breaking sceptres and tiaras 
and crumbling tomes of reasoned wrong. Always the hope 
that the victory of the right will win the world back to the 
light of life which is love and always, when the war is won, 
disappointment, disillusion and even moments of despair! 
Always in the middle of the fray an idealism that recks not 
of self, succeeded, after the tumult and the shouting dies, 
by profitable compromises with the Evil Principle that pre- 

9 



sides over national greed and personal gain! Always the 
yawning chasm between lofty expectation and lowly out- 
come! 

"Woe to the conquered!" has been the cry ever since 
the Gaul threw his victorious sword in the Roman scales. 
The tears of Vienna over her starving little ones move us 
no less than the sufferings of Louvain. The magnanimity of 
the soldier yields to the ruthlessness of the politician, and 
a decade of our own history sees a proud people bound hand 
and foot and delivered over to the debauched rule of their 
former slaves. But it is often "Woe to the conquerors!" as 
well. A hundred years ago Europe, banded under the lead 
of England, drove forth into exile, after a mighty struggle, 
the Man of Blood, Napoleon— a triumph as magnificent 
as that of 1918. Did victory bring immediate happiness 
to England? Hark to the historians! Thousands of dis- 
charged soldiers and sailors were without employment, 
many merchants were ruined and many laborers thrown 
out of work. Food was at famine prices. Everywhere rad- 
icals, the first of the name, fomented insurrections. Riots 
broke out in every part of the kingdom, and were suppressed 
with massacres. The frightened Government suspended 
the Habeas Corpus Act, limited the freedom of speech, of 
the press, and violated all the traditional English ideals of 
liberty. Such was the aftermath of that World War. But 
we need not cross the seas for illustrations. The immedi- 
ate sequels of our own great conflicts have been fraught 
with disappointment. At the close of the Revolution, pri- 
vation instead of prosperity. The public treasury so empty 
that neither officers nor soldiers received any pay for their 
services. Little business anywhere; everyone trying to 
collect debts, and no one having money to pay. Widespread 
murmurings were succeeded by Shay's RebeUion, an in- 
surrection of Massachusetts farmers, suppressed with dif- 
ficulty by the state. In every corner of the country, gloomi- 

10 



est apprehensions. At the close of the War of 1812, the 
political menace of the Hartford Convention and the com- 
mercial ruin of many manufacturers undersold by English 
rivals. At the close of the Civil War, the horrors of Re- 
construction and the inglorious struggle between Congress 
and President Johnson, always stiffnecked and aggressive 
and sure to yield nothing for the sake of accommodation. 
Woodrow Wilson says of him that "he could not be right 
without so exasperating his opponents by his manner of 
being right as to put himself practically in the wrong" — 
a comment that now rises to plague its inventor. 

But to what end this catalogue of woes? We should 
find small comfort in the thought that other men and other 
times had suffered like ourselves, save for the ensuing re- 
flection that, in each period, the darkness is followed by a 
golden dawn and a blue day. Seething discontent with 
present ills ever begets much future good. English dissatis- 
faction with the suppression of popular sentiment after the 
Napoleonic Wars directly engendered the Reform Bill and 
its sweeping changes in politics and government, American 
protest against the intolerable conditions under the old Con- 
federation led the way to the new Constitution and to the 
beginnings of these United States. Partisan strife after 1812 
yielded to the era of good feeling under Monroe. It is need- 
less to tell you that civilization got far forward on a powder 
cart in a war that blasted both secession and slavery and 
heralded the ultimate coming of a larger national life. 

In one of the oldest of English poems the lonely and 
bereaved singer passes in review the stories of valiant men 
who had triumphed over adverse fates, consoling himself in 
each case with the refrain, "That he overwent; this also 
may I." May we not, in the present hour of doubt, avail 
ourselves of this simple philosophy ? That our fathers over- 
went at the end of the Revolution; that they overwent after 
the second war with Britain, and that after the Civil War — 
and thus also may we overcome present doubts and fears. 

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